1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to articles which may be used as dunnage material and, more particularly, but not by way of limitation, to a method and apparatus for manufacturing the articles utilizing biodegradable, recyclable material.
2. Description of the Related Art
Packaging material is a necessity because a large percentage of shipped goods require protection during transportation. For example, certain goods such as glass, clocks, lamps, crystal, and china are extremely delicate and, therefore, require careful handling and packaging to avoid damage during transport. Furthermore, even goods which are less delicate such as books often need special packaging to prevent damage during shipping. Accordingly, many shipped goods are packed in a dunnage material which acts as a lightweight, shock absorbing cushion to prevent those goods from being damaged during transit.
The most common dunnage material in use today comprises pellets formed from foamed polymerized plastics such as polystyrene. The foamed plastic pellets are typically fabricated in a variety of configurations, such as concave disks, peanut shapes, and clover leaf structures, in order to produce a shock absorbing effect. Specifically, the odd configurations of the foamed plastic pellets produce shock absorbing air spaces between them when they are packed about a good placed in a shipping container. That is, if a force is exerted against the shipping container, the air spaces between the pellets absorb the shock, thereby preventing damage to the shipped good.
Although foamed plastic pellets provide effective dunnage material because they are lightweight, resilient, and shock absorbing, they suffer disadvantages which makes their use undesirable. First, foamed plastic pellets are bulky, thus making their storage and shipment before use burdensome and uneconomical. That is, the containers required to store and transport large amounts of the foamed plastic pellets are either unnecessarily large or extremely numerous. Second, foamed plastic pellets exhibit static forces that cause them to cling to one another. As a result, the foamed plastic pellets agglomerate to disrupt the operation of automatic dunnage dispensing machines. Third, foamed plastic pellets are environmentally unsound because they are fabricated from non-renewable resources which do not safely biodegrade. Accordingly, both the production and subsequent disposal of foamed plastic pellets result in damage to the environment. Finally, foamed plastic pellets fabricated from polystyrene are highly flammable and, therefore, present a significant fire hazard.
A specific example of foamed plastic pellets utilized as dunnage material is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,621,022, issued on Nov. 4, 1986 to Kohaut et al. Kohaut et al. disclose a packing material constructed from a foamed plastics granular material. The foamed plastics granular material is shaped into particles which form a star-shaped basic body having at least one orifice and at least three limbs lying in a common plane.
Another example of a synthetic dunnage material is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 2,579,036, issued on Dec. 18, 1951 to Edelman. Edelman discloses a prefabricated packing briquette that is formed of synthetic fibers impregnated with a water proof binder such as a vulcanized rubber adhesive. Although the dunnage material disclosed in Edelman is useful for insulating purposes and for padding furniture, it is not well adapted for packaging objects for shipment because of its weight.
Although the majority of dunnage material is formed from foamed polymerized plastics, it may also be fabricated from paper products. An example of paper dunnage material is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,997,091, issued Mar. 5, 1991 to McCrea. McCrea discloses a free flowing dunnage packing material formed in small pellet-like particles from recycled scrap paper. The dunnage material is formed by first mixing paper and heated water to produce a pulp, and then extruding the pulp fiber for fabrication into the small pellet-like particles. Unfortunately, production of dunnage material of this type is expensive as well as labor intensive.
Furthermore, solid particulate dunnage material is unacceptable for protecting delicate goods because it permits a shipped good to move about its packaging container during transport. Movement of the shipped good about its packaging container may be prevented by tightly packing the solid particulates around the good. However, any tight packing of the solid particulates results in their directly transmitting any jarring forces to the packed good rather than their absorbing the impact. Thus, damage to the shipped good may occur even though it is prevented from moving about the packaging container.
In addition, waste paper used in making the dunnage material often has printing on it which tends to come off on the packed good or on the person packing or unpacking the shipped good. Also, because the dunnage particles are solid, they are relatively heavy which makes their use in packaging goods for shipping economically inefficient.
Moreover, similar to foamed plastic pellets, solid paper particulate dunnage material is bulky which causes its shipping before use both difficult and uneconomical. That is, solid paper particulate dunnage material also fails to overcome the problems of pre-use shipping experienced by foamed plastic pellets. Essentially, the solid particulates are difficult and clumsy to ship because they are formed in uneven and unstackable shapes. Thus, the boxes in which the solid particulates are shipped are either unnecessarily large or exceptionally numerous. Accordingly, although the solid paper particulates do have the advantage of being biodegradable, their disadvantages make them inadequate as a dunnage material.
The present invention, therefore, sets forth a method and apparatus for manufacturing an article suitable for use as a dunnage material which improves over foamed plastic and solid paper particulate dunnage materials by being recyclable, biodegradable, and formed into hollow shapes which allow even stacking so that economical pre-use shipping may be accomplished.